Emily Evert, Author at Wavy Hair Care

Irish Curls and Celtic Curls – Tiktok Trends

September 5, 2024 by Emily Evert 1 Comment

If your TikTok algorithm shows you content about wavy curly hair, you’ve almost certainly come across content for Irish curls in the last couple of months. It’s become a really commonly discussed concept in the wavy curly community on there. I’ve also seen some content about Celtic Curls lately! I thought I’d address these topics here on the blog because I’ve never covered these before and I know people are coming across some of it on TikTok and are curious!

By the way, if you aren’t following me on TikTok, please do! My username is WavyHairCareBlog.

@wavyhaircareblog

What Are Irish Curls?

Irish curls refers to hair that is straighter on top, and wavier or curlier underneath. Many people on TikTok have linked this type of hair with having Irish heritage.

It is very common for people with wavy hair to have straight or at least straighter hair on top (aka on their canopy). Whether or not this has anything to do with Irish heritage is extremely debatable. To be honest, my best guess is that it is unrelated! Of course people who are Irish can have this hair type, but they may also have straight hair, wavy hair all over, or curly hair all over. Also, lots of people have this hair type but do not have Irish heritage.

That being said, if people are Irish and have this hair type and enjoy using this phrase, then of course that’s fine for them to use this terminology. Also, even if you choose not to refer to your hair as Irish Hair, if you have this hair type and want help styling it or caring for it, you’re in the right place!

Far less often, but I have also seen some people say that they think Irish curls are unique from other curl types because they believe people with Irish hair are more likely to have fine hair strands and low porosity hair. Hair porosity and thickness definitely vary, but having a combination of low porosity and fine hair is not particularly rare in general, it’s my own hair type and is pretty common for people with wavy hair. It does require some specific care vs other types of wavy or curly hair but I believe that to be true of all hair types. If you aren’t sure of your own hair thickness and porosity, check out my blog post how to determine your wavy hair type.

What are Celtic Curls?

Some people are expanding the idea of Irish Hair or Irish Curls to also include other Celtic heritage. It’s essentially the same thing as Irish Hair.

Do Irish People Have An Exclusive Hair Type?

Since starting this blog and trying to really “nerd out” with reading hair research, I have been SHOCKED at how little research is done on hair. Companies sometimes do research about how hair responds to their particular products, but studies being done on hair just for the sake of learning more about human hair, are surprisingly rare.

I read a hair chemistry textbook that essentially apologized for how what research we do have on human hair largely was based on the idea of there being three main human hair types. They broke hair down by caucasian, African-American, and Asian categories. People of other ethnicities or nationalities were just left out, and they don’t have any great reason for why these three categories were chosen! In some cases, caucasion hair was broke into categories based on straight or curly, and brunette vs blonde, or sometimes gray hair was analyzed separately as well.

There were common differences found in those three categories, not just in texture but also in the percentages of different proteins in the hair, the thickness of the hair cuticle and more. I suspect that genetic differences in our hair, largely correlated to our heritage, may impact how our hair looks, feels and how it responds to different styling techniques. Whether or not there is a particularly unique property to Irish hair or Celtic hair just isn’t well researched as far as I have been able to determine. My personal suspicion is that human hair comes ina lot of varieties that exist on somewhat of a spectrum, rather than there being 3, or 5, or even 500 strict hair types.

Another View Of Irish Hair And Celtic Hair

Another way of looking at this hair type that is wavier or curlier underneath and straighter on top is to call it an uneven curl pattern. Having an uneven curl pattern is extremely common, if not the norm, for people with wavy hair. Images in media leave us feeling like wavy and curly hair “should” be perfectly uniform, but that isn’t how the vast majority of people with naturally wavy hair or naturally curly hair find their hair to be. It’s normal for your hair to be curlier in the back of your head than the front, or on the underside of your hair rather than the top. It’s also common for people to have tighter curls at their temples and/or at the nape of their neck where hair is usually more fine.

I have an article covering how I tighten my straighter section and manage my uneven curl pattern if you want to check it out. I also covered the same topic in a YouTube video which you can watch below. If you aren’t subscribed to me on YouTube, please subscribe!

Why Irish Hair Has An Uneven Curl Pattern

The most important thing to know about Irish hair or Celtic hair is that it’s highly likely that the reason the top layer of your hair is straighter than the bottom is the exterior hair is more damaged. I do not mean to suggest that there isn’t some genetic or natural difference in your curl pattern from the top to the bottom. There likely is! However, when there is a big difference in curl pattern from one part of the the head to another, damage is almost always a meaningful factor. This damage is also pretty natural and happens for a variety of different reasons!

Did you know that the sun and even pollution in the air can damage our hair? It’s true, especially for hair that has been bleached, permed or chemically straightened, or is naturally light such as blonde or white/gray. The exterior of our hair gets more access to the sun, wind and environment in general.

The canopy or our hair also comes into contact with hats, our pillow and other surfaces more than the underlayer of our hair. When our hair comes into contact with hats and so on, it can be damaged by friction. Exposure to the elements allows moisture to be extracted from the exterior of our hair more rapidly, so the hair closer to our neck stays more moisturized which can help it stay wavy or curly. Finally, the exterior of the hair is often the first part of our hair to come into contact with the water from our shower head, so if you’re using a high pressure showerhead this can be rough on the exterior of your hair.

How To Care For Irish Hair

Everyone’s hair is a little bit different, including those within the same national background. As a result, what works for your Irish hair may vary some from what works for another Irish person’s hair. Finding the perfect hair care routine for you will require some trial and error. However, I’ll share some advice that is likely to work well for people with Irish hair, Celtic hair, or other forms of uneven curl patterns:

Treat your hair like wavy hair rather than straight hair. This means you don’t brush your hair after the shower, and you use a styling product like gel or mousse to help form your waves and curls. Diffusing instead of air drying is often really helpful. If the top layer of your hair acts really straight, you may not be convinced that all of your hair is wavy. In that case, I’d highly recommend reading my post How To Test If Your Hair Is Wavy. It’s my most popular post of all time and for good reason. SO many people have told me it has changed their life!

Give extra love to your straighter section. Giving extra care and support to the straighter portions of your hair can help really maximize their wavy or curly potential. For example, if you spend more time scrunching the straighter portions and diffuse them first, they might dry up a little tighter than they otherwise would. In some cases, also giving a bit less help to the curlier portions of your hair can help create more balance. For example, maybe you really scrunch the straighter portions of your hair tightly, and don’t scrunch the curlier portions at all so that when they dry they dry with a more even curl pattern. Another option is to finger-coil, finger-roll, or brush-style the top layer.

Get a layered haircut. Not just any layered cut, but one from someone who really knows wavy curly hair. Layered haircuts by a specialist who understands wavy hair and who understands that the canopy portion of your hair is straighter than the underside can help you get layers that give “lift” to your top layer to help it be as wavy or curly as it is capable of, while also letting your under layers peak out more!

Wavy hair Routine For Soft Touchable Hair Yet Tight Waves

August 6, 2024 by Emily Evert 1 Comment

There are affiliate links in this article.

For a long time after I first started embracing my waves, I thought I had to choose between having hair that looked good, or physically felt good. I tried several times of medium hold and soft hold hair products and they would leave my hair physically feeling better, but my results would be lacking in definition, volume or tightness. I tried several hard hold gels and mousses and they’d leave my hair well-defined and my results would be tight waves, but my hair wouldn’t feel so great to the touch. I thought I was limited to those two main options for well over a year of following the curly girl method.

In the last few years, I’ve found a few products that give me tight results, but leave my hair feeling super soft. I sometimes have people ask me how to get tight waves without crunchy hair. I thought I’d share a routine for those of you who are looking for that!

Touchably Soft Naturally Wavy Hair Routine

Wash and condition your hair with your choice of shampoo and conditioner. As long as the shampoo is a good level of cleansing for you, and as long as the conditioner is moisturizing enough without being too heavy for your hair type, you’re good to go! If you want suggestions from me, I personally like Not Your Mother’s shampoo and conditioners Curl Talk (Amazon link or Walmart link), the matcha green tea (amazon link, and the rice water line (amazon link) are my favorites. They’re available at most stores and fairly affordable.

After finishing your shower, plop your hair for about 5 minutes.

After plopping, apply Cake The Curl Whip Mousse. This is my #1 go-to for getting soft hair yet tight results. Use enough to get even coverage across all of your hair.

Diffuse your hair until it is 95% dry, then let it air dry the final bit.

You should get a soft cast over all of your hair. Once your hair is 100% dry, squeeze your hair gently to break the cast.

These are my results on a day where I followed the routine shared in this post.

Maintaining Your Soft Touchable Wavy Hair After Wash Day

Your results should last well for the first day. I do find that my hair falls flatter quicker with the cake the curl whip mousse than if I use products that give me more of a hard cast. I protect my hair overnight but it’ll still be quite a bit looser on the second morning. So, I refresh! Which is another reason why I absolutely love this mousse. It can be added to dry hair without getting sticky or feeling producty. So, when refreshing on mornings 2 and 3, I simply add the mousse straight to my dry hair, and then diffuse for about 10 minutes to let my hair dry (for reference, it takes 45+ mins for my hair to dry on wash day). Diffusing until the mousse dries in my hair will create a new cast which I gently break again.

Other styling products that provide touchable waves

Umberto Giannini curl jelly (Amazon link)

Innersense I Create Hold (Amazon link)

Dippity Do Girls With Curls Gelee (Amazon link)

Soft Wavy Hair Curly Girl Method Routine Video

I made a YouTube video of this routine! Check it out below. Be sure to subscribe to me on YT if you haven’t already! If you watch the video and enjoy it, please ‘like’ it as well.

How Much Gel To Use On Wavy Hair

May 8, 2024 by Emily Evert Leave a Comment

A really common question I get from people who are relatively new to the curly girl method or embracing their wavy hair, is how much gel should I use? Also, how to tell if you’re using too much gel or not enough!

It’s a really great question to be asking, and it has a little bit of a complex answer. I recently did my hair with too much gel, and then again with not enough gel, so that I could show you through images what each of those look like.

How much hair humans have REALLY varies

First though, I wanted to give a visual for why it is so challenging to know how much gel to use on wavy hair. It’s because how much hair you have on your head can be VASTLY different from how much hair another person has on their head, even if their hair is the same length as yours and even if neither of you are experiencing hair thinning or baldness at all. I’ve read that people with dense hair can have 6x as many hairs on their head as someone with low-density hair. That sounds a little hard to believe, but the tiktok embedded below helps illustrate this fact.

@ciera.hamilton No wonder people always confuse us for twins 🥰 #braid #twins #fyp #foryoupage #thickhair ♬ Ice Age – B

What If My Wavy Hair Really Likes Silicones?

April 25, 2024 by Emily Evert Leave a Comment

When people with wavy hair first start embracing their waves, it’s often because they’ve stumbled across the curly girl method online. They were taught that they needed to throw out any hair products that contain silicones, and start using a gentler shampoo, among other changes.

For some people, maybe even many, it works fine! I was able to find curly girl approved products that worked well for me with very little problem. However, not everyone is so lucky. Some of them eventually come to ask me or others the following question…

“What If My Hair Just Seems To Really Like Silicones?”

Others would give you a different answer, but I personally say – then use them! Are they curly girl method approved? No, they aren’t. However, if they work well for you then that’s what should matter in my opinion.

For some, they might appreciate learning that the curly girl handbook does not list any research or cite any sources. It is not a method or theory that is based in any science. Or at least, if there is any related science, they did not bother to explain it or cite it…which would be really strange.

What Do Silicones Do For My Wavy Hair?

Silicones create a very thin coat or film over your hair strands. This helps smooth the exterior which is wonderful for damaged or higher porosity hair which may be rough or uneven on the outside due to cuticle damage. This also smooths the hair and reduces the appearance of frizz. When hair is smoothed in this way, it makes hair feel better, align better, and can reduce tangling.

Silicones got popular in haircare for a reason – they help hair look good and act more manageable, especially if your hair is damaged or higher porosity. There are natural ingredients that do the same thing. You might think of these as curly girlmethod silicone alternatives. When I say that they ‘do the same thing’ I mean they coat the exterior of the hair to make it less frizzy and more manageable. However, the natural alternatives are ingredients like plant oils which tend to be heavy. Heavy ingredients often weigh-down wavy hair, while silicones are often designed to be lightweight. This can result in silicones being a really effective ingredient for damaged wavy hair.

What’s The Difference Detween Water-Soluable Silicones and Non-Water Soluble Silicones?

Even those who follow the curly girl method and dislike some silicones, may admit that they don’t see all silicones as equally ‘bad’. Some see water-soluable silicones as just fine, and they only dislike non-water soluble silicones. What does that mean?

The main reason why the curly girl method suggests avoiding silicones is because they claim that you need a really strong shampoo to remove the buildup from silicones. However, some silicones are water soluble, meaning they will dissolve in water without any cleanser being needed at all! These silicones can be used and can be removed from the hair without the use of strong shampoos.

So, some say that water-soluable silicones are safe to use while abiding by the curly girl method. As a result, if you’d like to stick with part of the curly girl method but feel your hair needs some silicones, you might choose to use water-soluable ones but continue to avoid non-water soluble ones. The science-y hair blog has an article sharing which silicones are water soluble.

Special-Case Non-Water Soluble Silicones

Also, some silicones are not water soluble, but behave in really specific ways that lead some to see them as ‘better’ silicones. A popular example would be Amodimethicone. This silicone is not water soluble but it does not attach to or coat all of your hair. Instead, it specifically attaches to damaged portions of your hair. So if you have sections of your hair cuticle that are damaged and that has left a ‘hole’ in your hair’s surface, and you use a product with Amodimethicone, the Amodimethicone will specifically stick to that gap in your hair, creating a smooth surface. However, it will not bind to the healthy or undamaged portion fo your hair, so buildup should not occur.

What if I Get Build up From Using Hair Products With Silicone Ingredients?

You can remove build-up by using a clarifying shampoo. Even when avoiding silicones, most people will find that they get some buildup over time. As a result, I suggest that everyone use a clarifying shampoo periodically. If you find that using silicones seems to require you to use clarifying shampoos too frequently and that is harsh on your hair…then you may have to choose which is more important to you. However, others will find that they can use clarifying shampoos pretty frequently without it drying out their hair. It may depend on how naturally moisturized your hair stays.